To Sleep, Perchance To Dream
by SinsofYouth
Summary: Companion piece to 'It's Only a Paper Moon'. "There's a chasim between the two of us. And it grows bigger every day, filled with everything we won't say to one another." Arthur's POV. Heavy Angst. Rated for a reason.


_**Hello, it's me again. This was burning a hole in my brain and wouldn't let me do anything else so I wrote it.**_

_**This is a companion piece to 'It's Only a Paper Moon' from Arthur's POV.**_

_**Warnings: Heavy Angst, Sexual Content**_

_**The title is from William Shakespeares 'Hamlet'.**_

_**Enjoy.**_

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**To Sleep, Perchance To Dream**

I hate waking up, even more than the going to sleep. At least when I sleep I dream of him.

All I have of him when I'm awake is a lie. It's short and it's simple and good and I hold him when we're done. But that's the lie. There's nothing left of us anymore. I sink into his heat and cling to the memories of the nights we had, where the world was ripe and love and togetherness was all we knew. It's gone now, that oneness is nowhere to be found. I suppose that's what happens when you haven't talked to someone in almost four hundred years. That's why I hate waking up; because every time I wake up, I realize I've fallen a little farther behind, a little more out of date, a little farther away from him.

We used to talk. We would try and catch up, to fill in the years we were missing from each other's lives. He would tell me a joke he'd been told fifty years ago, how the country had split, who was in power, what useless fool I had to save this time. We would mostly talk about him, what he'd done, where he'd gone, what he'd seen. Hours we would just lie in bed, curled together, sharing the warmth we missed and would be stolen again all too soon.

I don't really remember when we stopped. It was a slow demise, like boiling a frog to death. After a while we just realized we were saying the same things. He missed me. He loved me. He saw things that reminded him of us, of me. He hated seeing the life we knew, the remnants of our life; crumble into moldering ruin until even the foundation stones were no more than dust on the wind. He'd say it like that sometimes too. Merlin could be endearingly eloquent when he wanted to.

I would hold him tighter when he said things like that. I would whisper kisses over his ears and tell him that we would never end up like that. Nothing could get in the way of Merlin and Arthur, not even time. The last time I told him that, we were on a ship headed to Waterloo. I slept for three hundred years afterwards. When I woke up we didn't even speak the same language anymore; literally. I was speaking Middle English while Merlin had slipped into the current dialect, adapted with the times. He was integrated, I was the freak. Our roles were so reversed. He was the King and I was the servant bumbling and stumbling about trying to do some good. But all the time I felt so much like a landed fish, flopping on the shore, starving for oxygen.

I was so lost. And I was losing the one rock I had in my life. Merlin. Lord that sounds so stupid. But it's true. I knew it the first time I met him, a scrawny boy with a scarf fetish. I didn't always like it, but I learned to appreciate it. Eventually, I took it for granted. That was my first mistake. And I'd never know I'd made it until it was already way past too late. After that, it was all I could do to watch us as we drifted; continents moving painfully slow, inexorably constant. Each time I woke, we were a little farther apart. And I didn't know how to stop it.

I think somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I couldn't. But I wanted to believe I could. I'm Arthur Pendragon after all: King of Camelot, Savior of the World; I could fix anything. Except this…we, can't be fixed by swinging a sword around and beating the big bad guy. No, because I'm the villain in all this. I was so busy saving the world, I didn't see I was losing the one good thing I had left in it.

It's only been two hundred years this time. But it might as well be eternity for all I recognize of London's sprawling conurbation.

I open my eyes, water rushes up to meet my senses. It's the same every time. I expel the breath I've been holding for decades as my body is pulled towards the lakes' surface. This is a ritual I recognize, a pattern I've been reliving for eons. I know Merlin will be waiting for me when I emerge just as I know he won't be the Merlin I've been dreaming about for the last two hundred years.

My head breaks the surface first, the last rays of sunlight kissing my face. I stride to shore, to the bank where Merlin is waiting for me. He's wearing those funny clothes, he told me what they were the last time I was awake, but I don't remember what they're called. Blue pants and a simple shirt. My armor clanks and clicks as my feet hit the bank. I'm not wet. It's strange that I'm not, yet I feel so waterlogged each time I crawl from the lake.

I look up at Merlin. We stare at one another, our eyes searching for words we cannot fathom. I know I could say it then, all of my doubts and fears. I could cry; bare my soul to his compassion, hope he would understand what I cannot say.

He kneels down before I can open my mouth, pulling the pack off his back. He hands me clothing and the moment is gone. He has filled the space with action, with ritual.

He helps me peel out of my armor. This is familiar. It's part of the waking up. If I close my eyes I can almost imagine we're back in my room, back in Camelot. But too many things are different. His fingers no longer linger, no longer take time or care. We both know I should not be caught looking like this. It might urge questions neither of us should be answering.

The undressing takes more and less time than I want it to. The wind caresses my back and I shiver. The clothing Merlin has brought is warm though, homely and cotton, but warm. I've stopped commenting on the quality of clothing. I'm hardly a King anymore, just of my little pond. I should be greatful I get clothing at all.

Merlin doesn't watch me as I dress anymore. He used to. We would sometimes take hours to leave the water's edge, just drinking one another in, cataloging each separate strand of hair, each new scar. I don't remember when he stopped; maybe it was around the same time I started watching him out of the corners of my eyes. He would move differently when I wasn't watching. His body grew tense, his shoulders hunched, his feet dragged. I didn't recognize him as the hopelessly optimistic manservant I thought I knew so well. He'd become a new Merlin, one I had no hope of understanding, no matter how long I watched him.

I shove my feet in a pair of sandals and we are walking out of the woods. The trip to Merlin's apartment is a whirl of lights and fast vehicles and loud noises. It too is over far quicker and slower than I wish it to be.

The apartment itself is small. It is neat and colorless. Merlin has brought nothing of himself to this whitewashed cranny in which he sleeps. The walls are bare of both paint and decoration. The carpet is threadbare and I can see patches of the floorboards where it's been worn through. Merlin tells me it's best to keep my shoes on, but offers no further explanation. He would have once, before destiny turned him into a cold man. I curl my toes in the borrowed shoes and follow his advice.

He's moving around his small kitchen with easy, practiced movements, so unlike the bumbling Manservant I know…knew. Before I can offer to help he's spooning something warm and yellow onto two plates and we're sitting down at his battered fold out card table. I'm shoveling food into my mouth, but it's all habit. The food turns to ash in my mouth for all that I can taste. I eat because my body demands it after so long asleep. Like so much of this, it is instinctual, guided by memory and tradition. That's all I have left.

Merlin is speaking. He's telling me all the things I need to know about the evil which must be defeated, all the things I'm not listening too. I realize in that moment that I no longer want to listen. I want to eat my meal of ash and soot without having to think about saving the world again, about what will happen after I fulfill destiny, about when I'll have to say goodbye to Merlin again.

Maybe that's not so bad. At least when I say goodbye I dream of my Merlin.

Merlin clears his throat and I glance up at him, a little guilty for being caught ignoring him. But he doesn't look angry or disappointed. Merlin's eyes, the once brilliant crystal blue is dim and grey with apathy. He sighs and for an instant I think he's going to say something. But instead he pushes his plate aside and reaches for me.

Our lips meet and I feel what I have always felt: lust, raw desire. It's one of the few things I have left of us. But it's only a shadow of the fire we once knew. Understanding that, I still can't turn him away. I wish as our tongues slid together, that I had the strength to push him away, to make him listen while I pour out every putrid insecurity I have, tell him I don't want his body, I just want my Merlin back.

But he's in my lap, pulling the soft shirt from me as his firmness presses into my crotch and I know I won't say anything. I don't even know why not. The reasons have all faded into emptiness until only the symptoms remain: the resolve to stay silent.

His skin is so pale. I touch every inch I can while he is wrapped around me, constantly moving, but making no sound. I wonder if he has seen much sun in the last few hundred years, but those thoughts are quickly swept away by the sensual motion of Merlin's hips. I think that if we keep it up we might wind up going all the way in this chair, the one that's creaking with Merlin's every twist and shimmy. I begin to think about a bed and Merlin is off of my lap, tugging me down a narrow hall.

We are on the bed before I even have a chance to miss his skin on mine, clamoring to remove the last of our clothing. I'm trying not to think how easy this is as I feel a cold tube being pressed into my palm. I'm trying not to think about how little I'm actually paying attention to his reaction; how I already know then all by heart. I'm trying not to wonder if he's faking any or all of his reaction and how long since he's thought he's had to. I'm trying not to wonder if it is possible to become so used to a person you just tune them out. I'm trying not to remember that this is the only thing we do anymore. I'm trying not to remember that this is a lie.

I slip inside, maybe before he's ready. I don't know. He moans and his fingers wrap around my arms just like they do every time so I have no way of knowing for sure. I begin moving, his heat is comforting, almost enough for me to lose myself in. But I'm not closing my eyes and feeling because I've caught his. That's when I realize we're face to face. We haven't used this position in nearly a millennia, before we started falling apart. He's on his back and I'm inside him, staring into his eyes, eyes that I can imagine are bright.

Without even realizing my hips have slowed to a gentle wave. I realize I'm making love to him and want to cry and hit myself in equal measure.

But the brightness in Merlin's eyes doesn't diminish. It's no trick, the illusion of a desperate mind. We are looking at one another for the first time since I've woken up. We are staring, seeing as I move gently in and out.

My eyes are roving hungrily, everything that is him they search, enjoying for the simple joy of being allowed. And Scars and shadows, dips and hollows, a tattoo I don't understand. His body is the body of a stranger, a new Merlin, a stranger.

My eyes journey back to his, over the pale path of foreign skin. The brightness is gone, or maybe it was never there. Maybe I am going insane.

And suddenly, all I want is to be finished. I don't want this farce anymore. I don't want to linger. I'm going hard, my hips pistoning, skin slapping on skin. I try to ignore that Merlin isn't even looking at me anymore. He's turned his face to the side, an arm flung across his eyes.

I close mine and press on. It's wonderful and horrible and all at once I'm coming inside of him, pushing aside the guilt of using another human being. Of using Merlin.

I try and fall back on tradition, pull him into my arms so we can pretend to sleep, but Merlin is gone. I hear the door slam behind me and I'm left alone on the narrow bed with nothing but the quickly cooling heat from his body. I'm alone.

I want to call out, to tell you to stop and come back, that I love you, that I'll always love you. But I know this love I have for you will never be enough, it isn't now. I will always be drawn to you, like moth to a flame. Arthur without Merlin is a book without an ending: nothing; pointless.

We are caught you and I in a cycle of destiny so closely intertwined that we will eventually consume one other. As the cycle continues, so will our love, our tragedy. Our pointless struggle to cling onto the wreckage of a sunken ship.

It is pointless because I know that in the end I will be called back to the lake. I will allow the waters to close over me, to draw me back down to the depths and the almost warm embrace of slumber.

I know because it is my destiny to live forever even while I dream of living once.

I close my eyes, allowing the sweet serenity of nothing enfold me. I'll wake soon. Merlin will come back, this new Merlin I don't know. He will show me what I have to do. He will guide me. I will win. I always win. And then I will be drawn back to the lake, the place I love and hate.

I will leave Merlin again. This Merlin. But I'll be returning to my Merlin, the one I leave behind in the lake. The one who still loves me.

He's a dream.

But he's all I've got left.


End file.
